Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Drop Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare
Sift flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar together through a fine sieve.
Cream together butter and sugar; add a little of the milk and mix.
Add the yolks of the eggs and beat well.
Alternately add milk, beaten egg whites, and flour.
Bake and serve
Grease flat tins and drop the batter in separate spoonfuls.
Clean the currants and sprinkle a few over the top of each cake.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until rich brown.
The cakes will run together; break them apart when taken from the oven.
Cool them on a sieve.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure, richness, and lift from the whites.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavour.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cakes and helps them brown as they bake.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that lightens the batter.
- Cream of tartar
- Acts as an acid that reacts with baking soda to help the cakes rise.
The step that matters
Breaking the cakes apart after baking. The batter is loose and spreads, so the cakes run together in the oven. Separating them while they are hot keeps their shape and prevents them from fusing into one mass as they cool.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, sugar, butter, milk, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, sugar, butter, milk, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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